World Entire
by Tsar Bomba
Summary: There is more than familiarity or similarity, Madison Li recognizes as much. Maybe she finds something attractive in a person so willing to destroy themselves for humanity's sake. It wouldn't be the first time. Madison Li/Female Lone Wanderer
1. Chapter 1

She looks so much like her father.

All tall and angular and grey-eyed and beautiful like he was. Doctor Li can remember hating the child even out of the womb for all the ways she looked like Catherine, but while the pale blonde waves remained, Catherine's soft features had been overruled by the sharpness of the father and for that Madison was grateful but she didn't know why.

Jude, that was her name, Jude. She stood all quietly severe and her gauntness made her look haunted and the shadows and green light of the lab made her hollow eyes and sunken cheeks darker and deeper. Yet the corner of her mouth lifted in an almost smile at Madison's bewilderment. "I get that a lot."

Even her voice and words had some of the same inflections that his did. "You're her, aren't you?" Madison knew but she could not help but ask. This was not what she had expected to show up in her lab after twenty years of nothing. "What are you doing here? Your father said he left you in the vault." The last sentence ended as a question and Jude's faint smile fell. "I was told that he came here to see you." She had no intention of answering Madison's question. "And I was hoping he was still here." Her lips were now almost bitter in the way they set and Madison knew all too well the cold pain and anger of being abandoned by someone you thought loved you. She still wasn't over it either.

"He's gone." Madison felt her throat tighten in frustration as she stared openly at Jude's face and found herself wishing she could look away because in this moment she hated how much of James she saw. First him and now her and both had brought to surface memories and thoughts and she had spent two decades trying to forget and she did not wish to remember what she lost. "He's already left. And you should leave too, because I won't help you."

"Why not?"

"Project Purity is dead. It died with your mother and fixing it won't bring her back as much as your father dreams otherwise."

"Tell me where he is and I will leave."

Madison had already turned, fighting another outburst, when Jude's voice stopped her. She shared his determination. And his obstinance. Yet where Madison had seen blind optimism in James' eyes, in Jude's all she saw was resignation. It was disquieting to see that in the face of the individual who had been lauded on the radio as equal in justness and mercy as God himself. She looked tired and in that moment Madison felt the same. Too tired to be cruel. "Jefferson Memorial. It was our old lab site. Please don't go," Madison added desperately before Jude had even begun to leave, trying to have just a few more moments to look upon a face so familiar and still so foreign. Hopeless grey eyes and a sad smile were what met her.

"In case I don't see you again, thank you, Doctor Li." The girl sounded tired and she spoke like she truly may be dead before they can cross paths again and this did not seem to scare her. It terrified Madison. "Is this worth dying for?" Madison asked suddenly. It was a question she had meant for herself and she wasn't really sure what she was asking but Jude answered anyway. "Isn't everything?"

Her answer surprised her when it shouldn't have. Galaxy News had made heroes out of the wrong people before in desperate times when hope for a messiah was all they could cling to. Until now she didn't believe that selflessness like this still existed. Madison didn't agree with her answer, but it was comforting to know that there was someone like Jude out there in the barren, godless wastes. One who saw the world for what it was and still thought it was worth saving.

But Madison didn't say this out loud because she was shamed by the very presence of his golden child and Jude left silently and Madison was left behind feeling the same sinking, biting weight of abandonment in her chest as she had when James left. The love of her life and his creation both before her in this lab just days apart and now they were gone again. Life is cruel. Madison spends seven days unable to think of anyone other than brilliant hopeful James and his sad beautiful daughter and she finds herself listening to the radio more and more hoping to hear her name. And when the children run up and down the hall playing and arguing over who gets to be the good guy in their fantasy it is the Lone Wanderer she thinks of.

On the eighth day they returned, tattered and thin. James spoke ceaselessly of the GECK and Braun and all the things they could do and how they could do them. His eyes were bright and the motions of his mouth pulled his skin tight across his skull even when he smiled that smile. Madison was not convinced. Hope is painful and skepticism is easy. Doubt is easy.

But then her eyes met Jude's who stood silent behind him and did not doubt, did not encourage, but accepted the words of her father. Accepted that whatever they were trying was worth it. Madison couldn't bring herself to submerge fully into James' fevered optimism but acceptance was something she could handle.

"I'll get a team together, head that way. We'll see what we can do." Madison's voice was empty and her words unconvincing even to her own ears. It was the small upward curve at Jude's mouth that made her believe that this desperate hopeless act was worth it even though it was doomed to fail again like it had before. Her smile was worth that.

* * *

I've been wanting to write this couple for a long time and finallyyyyy got around to doing something. Hoping to update soon. Thanks for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

It was still dark when they left Rivet City, footsteps echoing quietly on the metal grid of the bridge and the only light a hazy glow of green at either end of the line, alien in the blackness. It was those wrist-mounted computers that James and Jude wore, Madison realized. Overblown vault technology bullshit in her opinion but she was grateful for the beacon to follow.

They were an odd company. James in his ragged jumpsuit led the party eagerly, striking conversation with anyone in his vicinity about the project even in the dark, though he was the only one who wanted to talk. The scientists in their dusty lab coats and sensible shoes and unarmedness were fearful, cautious in their steps, even though the walk to the Memorial was a short one. It had been years since any had ventured outside the carrier.

Madison studied the city as the sun began its lonely ascent. Crumbled concrete sidewalks and twisted skeletons of skyscrapers warped by fire and force. The paint stripped from everything. The cold sun was alien and hazy behind the line of ash that covered the horizon and the land under like a shroud. Empty, silent, still. Not even the whistle of wind to create a sense of movement or life out here. The capital wasteland hadn't changed in her absence. Could it change at all? Was this the permanent state of things?

Madison looked over her shoulder. It was too dark to see much other than a bobbing green light but Jude walked behind them all, as silent as the world around her. The sun didn't create much light through the morning fog but Madison had observed her long enough to know what she looked like. Leather armor stained dark and a tattered grey scarf that she probably wrapped around her mouth on days when the ash blew too thick to breathe. Blood splattered. Long rifle poised in relaxed hands. She evoked something ancient, a lost but faithful exile walking a black planet destroyed by beasts long dead.

Madison slowed down, matching Jude's stride with her own once she was next to her. Somehow her silence was more comfortable than James' chatter. Still, after a few quiet minutes, Madison found herself talking.

"Do you ever imagine what the world looked like before?" she started, then immediately thought her question was stupid and regretted it. Who didn't imagine that. Who out there didn't want it, whatever "it" was? But Jude seemed to consider her. "We have this notion of what it used to be like. But that's all we have. This image in our heads of carefree lives of green lawns and white picket and mind-numbing contentedness because that is what we see on billboards and hear from the Enclave as we walk roads layered by corpses mired in tar."

Jude's answer was too specific to be a hypothetical example. It was a memory. She continued. "I lived a life of mind-numbing contentedness, Madison. For 19 years. I was the closest to the old world as anyone could be. It will never be like that out here. For that I am grateful."

The sun was higher now, and the Memorial seemed to materialize in front of them. Broken and aged like the temple of a forgotten god.

Jude spoke again after a while. "Clinging to the notion that we can rebuild and recreate the world as it was is unrealistic. Unfair." She looked at James when she said this. "I hope for small acts of kindness. Mercy. Justness. Benevolence." She shifted her gaze to Madison. "I want to believe there are more good than bad people out there." She smiled a little and Madison could not tell her that she was the only one.

When they reached the side door to the gift shop it was James who sent Jude inside to "clean up" anything alive in there and Madison wondered about the type of dedication it took for a man to send his only child to kill mutants. They all waited just inside the door, nervous but loathe to be outside. The better part of a silent hour passed before green light could be seen around the corner and Jude emerged. James didn't say more than a word as he passed his gore-splattered child and made his way inside.

Dust clung heavy to everything. Large green bodies slumped limp against the walls. The air smelled sour and chemical. They set to work immediately, doing repairs and running numbers at a feverish pace set by James. Jude, like her father, had a scientific mind and absorbed herself in the work she was given, only occasionally looking up at her father, or, almost as often, Madison.

They worked all day, and towards evening James had Jude making repair runs to the basement. She would come back and sometimes Madison would catch her looking at or toying with the small audio tapes that lay scattered over most of the facility. James was a notorious note-taker. No doubt most were his and most were probably recorded before she was born.

James, true to his nature, was hopeful enough for all of them and his optimism was almost enough to make up for his intensity. They worked late and there was little interior lighting save for the holes in the roof and it was only when they began having trouble seeing that he agreed to calling it a night. They ate small cold meals and bunked in the basement and Garza found an old gas lamp that they lit and set in the middle of the room to break up the darkness. It was then that Madison noticed Jude was missing. Through the metal walls she could hear tinned voices and she realized she was on the other side of the hall listening to those audio tapes. A clear, joyful and painfully familiar laugh echoed lightly and Madison knew the laugh was Catherine's.

James was in the bunk next to her, and Madison rolled over and sat up and looked to his figure in the dark. "Will she be okay?" she whispered. James sat up instantly. "Of course. We'll have the old girl up and running tomorrow. After that all we'll need is a GECK, and I know how to find one." Even in the dusty murk his eyes were bright. "It'll work. Project Purity will work. I know it."

Madison was quiet for a moment. "I was talking about Jude."


	3. Chapter 3

Madison woke in an unfamiliar place. The orange warmth of the lamp was gone and replaced by the flicker and hum of blue-green fluorescence. James' cot was empty and Jude's appeared untouched and Madison hypothesized that the two of them, likely unable to sleep for differing reasons, had restored power and repaired the mainframe overnight.

When she tried to get out of bed the motions were stiff and she felt old. She stood and shook the dust that had settled on her clothes during the night and did not ignore the irony of the action.

James was already at work even though everyone else was still asleep. When Madison approached him in the control room he did not look up from the terminal. "Good morning, Madison."

"Good morning."

"Jude left to get some supplies from Rivet City. Thought our stay here might end up being more permanent."

Madison didn't reply, just nodded. James didn't notice the gesture but he was already invested deeply in his current task and Madison took the opportunity to lose herself in her own.

Jude returned mid-morning, pushing a shopping cart filled with crates and boxes and covered with a tarp to block the ash. They unloaded the goods in the gift shop and Madison surveyed what they had: boxes of tasteless but easily prepared meals, canned goods, strange fruit that she didn't recognize, crates of clean bottled water, first aid, stimulants, and a few tools and materials. Jude also had a large canvas bag with ammo and parts for weapon repair. Even James stopped his work for a few minutes to come and see what she had acquired. "You did well" was all he said and for her it was all he needed to say.

Somehow, in spite of everything that had happened, the Project Purity team felt prepared, ready. Hopeful. Yesterday had been unknown and uncertain and now there was the possibility that everything would work out. Madison wasn't sure how to handle it.

Around noon when everyone else was eating lunch she retreated to the basement. She hadn't seen Jude since that morning but suspected James had her doing repairs outside. She walked the metal bowels of the facility restlessly, uselessly, finally settling on her cot and lighting a cigarette. It did nothing to calm her nerves.

If this works, then what? The Brotherhood takes over like they did last time? They're left to rot back at Rivet City? And if not then the rest of her life is spent here? Living in close quarters with the man she used to love and the girl who-

Madison didn't let herself finish that thought. Now wasn't the time. The cigarette fell and burned a small hole into her mattress and Madison let it.

Then she heard a splash.

She stood, following the sound out the room and around the corner. Another light splash. Jude was sitting in a rusted bathtub that was as out of place in the facility as most things in their world. Next to her she had a small crate of dirty water and a shot of rad-away that rested on top. The already grey water wasn't more than a few inches deep and she was washing her hair with what looked like abraxo cleaner.

Jude had stilled when she heard footsteps but relaxed when it was Madison who turned the corner. "Hello, Dr. Li."

"I, I'm sorry, I'll leave you alone." She didn't move though and the two watched each other in silence. After a little time Jude resumed washing herself.

"You don't want this to work."

Jude's tone was not accusatory or condemning. Just words, the way she always spoke.

"No."

"It is unfair what my father did to you. I'm sorry that you built a life after him and have to give it up again."

Madison didn't know what to say. She settled on "it's okay." They were quiet again. Minutes passed and Jude stood up, shivering, pouring one more bottle of water over herself to get the last of the filth off. She stood naked and Madison supposed that wasteland modesty was an outdated and pointless ritual. She was so thin. Madison remembers as a child finding the skeleton of a bird outside and placing the hollow bones under one of her long-dead father's microscopes. She thought of that when she looked at Jude.

Where the scarf had covered before Madison could now see a white scar that stretched white over Jude's throat. Who had she saved to earn that.

In Madison's ideal world, people were good without individuals like James and Jude having to carry the burden of every righteous deed. But this was stupid and impossible and Madison knew it. The nature of man just wasn't so.

"Do you think this will make a difference?" She finally asked, even though she knew her own answer and the answer Jude will give her.

"Project Purity?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Okay."

Madison stayed while she dried and dressed, shivering. They walked together back up to the control room and it wasn't moments before James asked Jude to go clear a blockage in the intake pipes.

She didn't mutter a word about having just taken a bath, instead she dutifully turned and headed outside. Not once did they look at each other.

"It will be nice, when this is over" James said and Madison looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"When we're done with this. Maybe I can fix my relationship with my daughter." He had stopped working. "She doesn't trust me, after I left her."

"She trusts what you're doing."

"That isn't the same."

He was right. She knew for herself. "She's done a lot of good out here" she added, but James shook his head. "She has, but this shouldn't be her world to fix."

Madison didn't answer because in the lull between words she heard a sound. The rapid flapping of wings. It was a sound they had heard before, distantly on nights that were silent other than the roar of the rotor and pitch black except save for bright spotlight that glassed the dead ground beneath. The roving eye of something evil. Madison wasn't sure who whispered it first.

"It's the Enclave."


	4. Chapter 4

Madison supposed she should have been expecting something bad to happen, then she realized she had been waiting for it. After all, they'd tried once before. It hadn't lasted then either. She was sickly relieved that she had used up most of her hope on this place the first time around. It hurt less to lose it again now.

They didn't have any time to run to the escape tunnel, so when heavy footsteps broke the fearful silence all they could do in the control room was shut off the machinery and dim the lights.

There were three of them huddled in the dark. Somewhere outside of this room James had a daughter, a family in the barest of ways. Young Janice Kaplinski had her whole life ahead of her.

Now, what did Madison have other than bitterness?

Titans in dark armor broke down the door. Curved, hi-tech rifles waved in their faces. Everyone was silent, the scientist's hands raised and the soldiers quiet and still as monoliths. Their leader wore a heavy trenchcoat over officer attire and it was him that spoke first.

"My name is Colonel Augustus Autumn." A practiced, military tone. "You will stand down, and you will hand over control of this facility to Enclave specialists."

James' hand hovered over the ancient pistol at his hip but he did not touch it. A question Madison had asked many times before came to mind. Is this worth dying for?

She didn't even hear when Jude ran in. James saw her and lunged and shoved Madison out of the room at the same time that Jude moved up the ramp, rifle pulled and aimed. The glass door between the main control room and the exterior slid shut and sealed and Jude hit the surface hard with her shoulder, unable to stop in time. When it didn't budge she stood staring wide-eyed at her father.

The two soldiers inside lifted their weapons and aimed them at James. He took the pistol from his belt and dropped it on the ground at Autumn's feet. "I don't want anyone hurt, Colonel."

Autumn turned, watched the girl on the other side of the glass through milky eyes. "Your daughter, I presume?"

"It doesn't matter."

Madison tried to open the door from their side. No response. James had disabled the controls.

"What is he doing in there?" she asked, the question unanswered.

Colonel Autumn ignored them, eyes still on Jude. He looked back at James. "We wouldn't want to see her hurt, Doctor."

"I'll kill you."

Weapons shifted, both barrels inches from his head.

"Don't be irrational. We can work together on this. You've started something wonderful. Let us help you finish. And don't threaten me again."

Colonel Autumn's eyes were small and milky and cruel and his face was expressionless.

James stilled, eyes shifting towards Jude, then Madison. "I'm sorry, Colonel. It was a misunderstanding. But this facility isn't even operational. It hasn't been for years. We never managed to gather conclusive results."

Colonel Autumn pulled his pistol and shot a bullet directly through Janice Kaplinski's heart. Silence.

"I won't repeat myself," Autumn said, voice low even as his tone didn't change. "Restart the purifier. Get it running."

James was looking at Janice as blood drained from the hole in her chest and through the metal grating. It was quiet enough that they could hear it drip into the water below. He looked to Jude, their expressions matching.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"There won't be need for more violence. I'll turn it on, give me a moment."

James turned, his back to them, and seconds after his hands reached the controls there was a explosion and not long after the rapid ticking of Geiger counters. The chamber shook. The soldiers fell, grasping at their throats and faces through their helmets. James pushed Autumn away and staggered towards the glass that separated him and his daughter. His hand slid down the surface. His eyes were wet with tears and bright with hope.

"Run."

That was it. He crumpled and stilled, tattered and ragged and finally unmoving. Madison stared, throat thick. After several moments of stillness she looked to her left. Jude stood with the tips of her fingers resting on the glass. Her counter was still ticking.

"We have to go."

No response.

"Jude. We have to go."

Jude finally looked away from her father's body. Small nod. Face strangely untroubled. "Okay."

Madison grabbed her arm but the touch was light. She followed down the ramp and over the rubble of the door. Madison lifted the heavy grate over the tunnel and called into the dark but no one answered.

They climbed down the ladder, Jude lowering the grate. The light was faint and she could see cowering silhouettes in the murk.

"Dr. Li?"

It was Garza. He slowly advanced to where they stood out of the shadows.

"Is there anyone else here?"

"Dargon, and Agincourt. They took Anna."

"James and Janice are gone," Madison said, suddenly remembering Jude. She was looking down the tunnel, standing past the men who hunched against the wall.

"Jude. Don't wander off, we're going to need you."

Her words came out sharper than she intended and felt a ping of shame among the fear when the girl turned and regarded her with empty eyes. "Where to?" Her voice was unaffected.

"This leads to an escape hatch on the other side of the water. Not far from the Citadel. We just need to keep moving forward. Will you lead?"

Everyone there knew that Jude was the only one capable of providing any sort of protection. The long rifle she carried already rested in her hands, and Madison knew the girl wouldn't still be alive if she did not know how to shoot it. This rational conclusion did not reduce the guilt she felt.

Jude just nodded, turning without a word while her charges followed close behind, like helpless sheep lost in the dark if not for their shepherd.


	5. Chapter 5

Things are slow going. The scientists flinch at every noise. A military beat of marching drums and a piping flute once distant plays louder and closes in. The eyebot rounds a corner, antennae twitching. It regards the strangers and turns back. Yankee Doodle fades away.

They keep walking, tripping over bones and trash and through puddles of a liquid that glows green in the dim light. They come to a wide tunnel out of a thin hall and Jude halts. There is a large metal door blocking the end. On the right is a smaller entryway with concrete barricades on either side. A terminal juts from the wall next to it.

"We need to get through the door on the end," Madison whispers, half-crouched, ready to run. She can hear metallic chatter and heavy footsteps through the smaller door. Enclave on the other side of the wall. She takes a deep breath. "I can get it open. Cover me."

She runs across as quietly as she can to the terminal and Jude crouches behind one of the barricades, rests the rifle on the concrete edge and aims into the room. The soldiers inside saw Madison run across and the red beams of light from their weapons hit the barricade and the ground near Madison's feet and sizzle harshly. The air smells burned.

Then an explosion. One more smaller one. Jude must have shot a generator past the door. The shooting ceased and Madison slowly types the last few keys because her hands are shaking and the door opens with a long screech and the clapping of metal panels. The company edges along the back wall and stare down inside.

A lone ghoul stands by irradiated barrels about thirty feet past the door. Glowy light behind them illuminates the blackness like sunlight at the mouth of a cave and the creature studies them, white eyes unblinking. Raw bone arms bend to cover its face. Filthy rags sway from the skeletal frame. They might have been a dress once but one can't be sure anymore. It snarls once and lopes away into the darkness.

Another door to open through more low tunnels slick with mold and they are in a circular room. A single lamp lights a hallway to their left. Half a metal ladder extends from a manhole in the center of the ceiling that has corroded shut. The bottom rungs have disintegrated. Brown skeletons litter the floor and the smell is sour. Madison feels a heavy hand on her shoulder. She turns and Garza is holding his chest.

"Dr. Li."

"Jude, stop."

Jude was already past the mausoleum and in the left hall. Kicking through trash. She stopped. "What is it?"

"Garza has a heart condition. Do you have anything on you?"

Jude's eyes shifted to Garza and it was him she spoke to. "I'm sorry, I don't." She looked to Li. "If we keep moving we might find something ahead."

"He can't keep moving."

"It's okay, just leave me."

Jude shook her head, silencing both of them. "Wait here. I'll be back."

"What?"

She had already disappeared down the hall and through the door on the right. Almost immediately after the door closed they heard shouts and an explosion then silence. Instinctively they shrunk into the back side of the room, pressing into the walls. Other than Garza's labored breathing it was quiet. It was during this intermission that they realized how exhausted they were. Seconds then minutes passed. They crouched like fawns waiting for either their mother or their hunter to show first. The door opened.

Tall and shadowed she limped into view. A torn leather bag hung over her shoulder. Her grey scarf was tied around her thigh. She poured the offerings on the ground at their feet. "This is all I found."

A single stimpak and a single cap of buffout and a single bottle of clear water. Garza took the first two and they split the water between the five of them. Tiny sips that didn't feel like enough on their dust coated throats. Garza finally nodded, his hand no longer holding his heart and his breathing easier. They went on.

A small smear of blood had streamed down Jude's left leg past her boots and to the ground and Madison saw when Jude tried to kick dust over the spot. Her scarf was more red than grey but there was nothing to do about it.

They passed through a room with the air still thick with dust from the explosion. Smoky smell. Bodies of feral ghouls littering a small stairway, their skulls smashed in. They exited into another wide tunnel after a maze of narrow halls.

Snarls echoed through the mist and bare bone feet ran crooked but swift at them through the dark. Someone screamed and Madison closed her eyes. Jude swung the rifle like a club, the black stock hitting the ghoul's skull with a loud crack and it crumpled, twitching.

They all stared at the corpse and at Jude. She shrugged. "I played baseball in the vault" was her only explanation. One more large door to open at the end of the tunnel they stood in. On the other side was a sewer sour with mold and moss. On the back wall were metal shelves with boxes of ammo and a crate of food. A first aid container on the wall. This small stronghold was long abandoned, the ammo boxes were empty and the food rotted. A single stimpak was wedged at the bottom of the first aid container. Jude handed it to Garza. Most of her leg was wet with blood but the ladder out was near.

The climb up was slow and when the hatch above opened they were greeted by blackness and cold river wind. Jude waited last, guarding their ascent. She climbed up behind them, lame leg hanging useless. She looked up and saw stars. Almost a year she had been outside and this was only the second time the sky was clear enough to see them. She remembered then that most of those stars had been dead for millions of years and the dot of light she saw was just an echo. A black silhouette blocked the circle she peered through. A hand reached down and Jude took it.

Madison pulled her up out of the hole. The air heavy and silent and the water dark glass. They look over the bay. Faint light at the memorial, dark figures moving huge and slow across the walkways. Behind them the imposing face of the Citadel. The land shuddered once to shift in the cold and stills.


	6. Chapter 6

They stand out there shivering, looking nearly as pitiful as anyone and it isn't until Madison shouts broken voiced into the intercom that the huge bay door groans open. Madison hates the Brotherhood of Steel. She hates that they are praised as wasteland saviors when they are really just glorified tech hoarders and thieves with unlimited weaponry. She hates they abandoned Project Purity the moment that there were complications and it was no longer worth their time. She mostly hates that she is coming to them for help.

The group staggers in, covered in dust and filth. Jude's arm is around Madison's shoulder and she leans heavy on her good leg. The other three men cross their arms over their chests and hunch in the cold. They are told to wait and they stand in the dark and wind surrounded by wary and curious Brotherhood Knights. Another door opens and an ancient robed man approaches, more gnarled and aged than he had been two decades ago but still recognizable when he steps into the light.

"Madison? I'm surprised to see you here." His words mock her, just slightly and just enough.

She doesn't waste time on old bitterness. There isn't any. "They've taken over the purifier."

"Who has?"

"The Enclave."

Elder Lyons' face is unreadable. "I thought the purifier was non operational?"

She nodded. "It was, James found a way to start it again."

"James? Where is he?"

"He's dead."

Jude shifts against her shoulder but Madison can't look her in the face. Lyons did though.

"A pity. He was a remarkable man." He stepped closer, peering at them in the dark. "Is this his child?"

"I am."

"Are you injured?"

"I'm fine."

Lyons huffed a little. "Stubborn like him." He looked to Madison. "I'm sorry, I wish there was something we could have done."

"Then do something now. We can't let the Enclave take control of the purifier. It's not right. God knows what they will use it for."

Lyons' lips are a thin line. "If what you are saying is true then I couldn't agree more, but our forces are stretched thin as it is. We lack the manpower and resources to carry out even small-scale operations against them."

"I'll do it." It was Jude who spoke. Madison tensed. Lyons considered. "Perhaps. We'll discuss it later, after you've had that leg looked at."

"I'll take care of it," Madison said, not trusting whatever the Brotherhood's interpretation of medical care was. Lyons' only reaction to her protectiveness was a slight narrowing of his wrinkled eyes.

"Very well. We can find a place for you to stay. Be welcome here, daughter of James. Get some rest. We have a lot of work to do."

They were escorted through a door with a plaque embossed "A-Wing" mounted near it. The light inside was bright blue white and they had to squint after so many hours in the dark. They stank like the tunnels they had walked through. Little clouds of dust and dirt sift out of their clothes with every step. Breathing is difficult. Walking is harder. But they are alive.

The men bunk in the laboratory. Madison and Jude are led deeper through the compound into the B-Wing and shown to the infirmary and left alone after Madison insists that the damn robot stay outside. The door closes.

Madison sits Jude on a gurney, loosening the scarf now sticky against her bony thigh and helping her pull down her ripped leather pants. Her leg is discolored and bruised, two deep short gashes across the side still bleed. Madison wasn't sure if the femoral artery had been cut but if Jude was going to bleed out she would have done it hours ago. There was shrapnel inside.

All they had was a mild topical anesthetic and Jude refuses the whiskey that Madison finds in the medical cabinet but Jude never flinches even as Madison pulled bits of metal out of her leg and poured a disinfectant over the wound. She didn't say a word at all. Madison spared a look at her face and all she saw were hollow eyes.

"Jude."

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too."

Madison mourned the loss of James, but in her own way she had moved on twenty years ago. Most of him died with Catherine. The desperate hopefulness that embodied James was all that remained but it was all that Jude knew. Madison wondered how much of the child had died with the father.

"Jude."

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"Saving us."

Jude looked pointedly at her leg and smiled a little. "We're even now."

It was still her.

Quiet again. Madison sewed the wounds closed and helped Jude dress. Their temporary quarters were barracks that currently stood empty. Brotherhood recruitment was not very high these days. Laying down was difficult. The adrenaline comedown left them shaking. Madison looked over at Jude. Still wide awake, eyes bright in the dimmed blue light. It was almost an hour they lay on those cots restless and faded before another word was spoken.

"Jude?"

"Yes?"

"You don't have to do this."

"Yes I do."

"Is it really worth it?"

"You keep asking that."

"Because I don't know the answer."

Jude was quiet. "I do, though."

"You think you do."

"Why do you try so hard to convince me that it isn't?"

Madison doesn't say that it is because Jude is too good for this world and it doesn't deserve her.

"It's just water."

It's an empty answer and she does not reply this time and Madison is left trying to ignore all the other selfish reasons why she tries so hard to change Jude's mind.

* * *

I hated writing this chapter and I'm glad it's over. I might have the next one up tonight if not tomorrow. Thanks for reading, and please review if you have the opportunity. I'd love feedback.


	7. Chapter 7

"Where are you going?"

"Vault 87. They have a GECK there."

"When?"

"Tomorrow morning."

Madison chewed the inside of her cheek. She had walked into the blue-lit Citadel laboratory that morning to find Jude and Rothchild looking at a projection of the Capital Wasteland. Rothchild had pointed at a location on the far western edge of the map. That is where Jude was going. To the other end of the world they knew.

They sat outside in the bailey on a metal bench, watching initiates spar while Jude repaired her armor and rifle and packed supplies into a military issue canvas tote she had found.

"You'd think the mighty Brotherhood could spare a man or two to go do this instead."

Jude just raised the corner of her mouth slightly at Madison's indignance and did not say a word. The day was almost clear enough to see blue sky beyond the ash clouds. A couple of lone gulls could be heard over the walls to the coast south of them. The air smelled like the sea. Days like this come rarely.

Madison did not know why she was so determined to keep Jude from going. Somebody has to do this, this thing that Jude does. Madison just wishes it didn't always have to be her.

It isn't as if the girl can't defend herself. She wouldn't still be alive if she didn't have some sort of talent for survival in spite of her seemingly total lack of awareness for her own preservation. She had not become Madison's warrant at the death of her father, although James might have appreciated that Madison worried for her in the same ways she had worried for him.

That morning, Madison had offered to assist Rothchild and the other scribes in dealing with power issues plaguing the two story robot they had placed ostentatiously in the middle of the Citadel laboratory, figuring that she had needed work to bury herself in while Jude journeyed to the edge of the world on a quest for something that probably doesn't actually exist. At least not in the way she and James believed.

She could go back to Rivet City, if she wanted. Back to her own lab and her own studies and her own life, but was there a point? Most of her team was either dead or missing. Agincourt and Dargon had both been escorted back to the carrier that morning. Garza only remained because she stayed and because he had some mechanical knowledge that had proved useful with Liberty Prime. Madison realized that the life she could return to would be as empty as it had been before James and his daughter had drug her out of it.

She did have Jude, as strange as that sounded, though she wasn't sure in what way. Was Jude a friend? Were their short, mostly one-sided conversations even indicative of something as personal as friendship? Madison was never close to anyone other than James, and she had not sought the company of others save for scientific purposes and collaboration. Socialization in the wasteland was difficult, even in a settlement like Rivet City. But they ate together, spoke often albeit very little. Jude had saved her life but Jude had also saved the lives of countless strangers without any hesitation. Was Madison more special to her than any other human life? She wasn't sure.

Does it even matter? Madison won't have anyone if Jude keeps offering herself to fix everyone else's problems. Talent and skill only go so far and last so long.

"What are you thinking about?"

Madison was used to spending a lot of time in her own head, asking questions that are only to be heard and answered by herself. She flinched when Jude brought her out of her reverie.

She looked at the girl. She wasn't looking at Madison, instead she had her hands in a soapy bucket up to her wrists. Her grey scarf floated on top of murky red water and she rubbed at the stains with her thumbs.

"What's with the scarf?" Madison wasn't ready to let Jude into her head yet. The girl already had a tendency to know what she was thinking.

Jude didn't say anything, just pulled the tattered fabric out of the bucket and wrung it out. She laid it across her thighs. "See this?"

101 printed in faded yellow lettering was just barely visible. "This was my vault suit. The one I escaped in." She shakes it out and hangs it to dry over the back of a bench across from them. "I wasn't out here for more than a month before it was torn to pieces." She watches it swing in the breeze. It is unrecognizable as an actual article of clothing. "It used to be blue. But I have to wash it all the time." She looks down, almost embarrassed. "I couldn't throw it away when I should have. But it blocks the ash and wind well enough."

Somehow Madison isn't surprised that the girl is sentimental. She does wish that the torn up and sun bleached rag that hung forlorn in front of her didn't remind her so much of the girl who wears it.

"You just manage to find all kinds of trouble, don't you."

They look up. A blonde woman stands at the door nearest them with her arms crossed and regarding Jude with a mirthful grin. "Heard you had made it here after all. I had hoped you had accepted my offer." She stopped talking and shrugged, walking closer and standing in front of them. "But then they told me about what happened at the Memorial. I'm sorry about your dad."

She turned her head to Madison and nodded. "Dr. Li. It's been a long time."

It had been. Sarah Lyons was only 7 years old when Madison had last seen her. Now she was all grown up, muscular and powerful even without her massive armor. Her skin pale except for her neck and face, which were tanned from days in city ruins stalking mutants. Brusque as always. Madison crosses her legs, tense. "Do you two know each other?"

"Jude was with us when we were trying to clear out Galaxy News." She tilted her head at Jude. "This one can snipe like nothing I've ever seen. I asked her how she learned to shoot and she told me she grew up shooting at radroaches with a BB gun."

Jude shook her head shyly and Sarah grinned. "I need to be going. It was good to see you. And think about what I told you."

Sarah left and Madison sat bristling while Jude rubbed at her rifle with an oily rag, not looking up once.

Madison hasn't felt jealous since the days of Catherine and James and she isn't sure what bothers her more: that Sarah knows something about Jude that Madison didn't or the way Jude blushed when Sarah was praising her. Madison didn't even know the stoic creature next to her could blush and she realizes how little she knows about her at all.

The both of them are quiet for some time before Madison finally speaks. "What did she mean by offer?"

Jude stopped then and looked at her. "She asked me to join the Brotherhood."

"What did you say?"

"I refused."

"Why?"

"I don't enjoy killing."

Jude said this like it was the most obvious reason in the world. She said this as she cleaned a rifle that had enough firing power to blow the head off of a man half a mile away. The girl is an enigma that Madison seems incapable of understanding and this frustrates her worse than anything. It comes to mind that maybe she will never comprehend what it is that compels Jude to do what she does. Maybe all she can do is watch and hope that it doesn't kill her.

She's never felt more helpless.


	8. Chapter 8

"Jude."

"Yes?"

"Why does it always have to be you?"

They walked out of the empty bailey, through the outer corrider and out the huge rusted bay door. The sun was still low, red and amber through the ash. Jude doesn't answer but she doesn't have to. Madison, as a scientist, is used to asking questions she doesn't always know the answer to. What she does know was that yesterday had come and gone too quickly.

The Brotherhood guards at the entrance watch them go out the front. A sentry robot swivels in acknowledgement at the footsteps that pass by. The water to the south is dark and loud against the coast. Low slow waves roll in and bit by bit pull the earth back with them. The Memorial sits so silent across the water that one would think it abandoned once more. Madison can't look at it for more than a few sparse seconds.

They walk west to where the sky is still hazy dark blue. A barren expanse extends out far past the grey skeletons of buildings at the outer edge of the city. A road is visible past a concrete lot surrounded by chain link. It follows north then curves to the west past the library and into godless and cruel country. The road ahead is inhabited mostly by violent people and violent creatures who seek to pillage and plunder those who walk it. This is the road that Jude will take.

Jude stops when they reach stairs leading down into the empty lot. Two turrets beep in sync on either side and the area past them is unprotected and unpredictable. She does not want Madison to follow her in. She turns and faces her.

"Your selflessness is going to kill you like it killed your father." Madison's throat is tight and her arms are crossed tight over her chest. Coastal mornings in the wastes are freezing. She wonders why she even bothered walking out here. She knows though that Jude has no one else to send her off.

"You worry for my life?"

Madison worries for the last thing of worth she has in her own. "Someone has to."

Jude rolls her narrow shoulders, the rifle and bag slung over them shifting with her movement. She's wearing her leather armor and her scarf and somehow she looks like she belongs out here. Cold wind blows a blonde wave into her face and she pushes it back with long fingers and doesn't say anything.

"I don't understand how two of the most intelligent and capable people I have ever met could have such disregard for their own survival."

Maybe it's a low blow to bring James up again because Jude isn't looking her in the eyes now. "I'm going to tell you something."

"What?"

"I didn't have any bullets."

"What?"

"In the Taft tunnels, I didn't have any ammo when we were escaping the Memorial. I used it all trying to get to the purifier."

Madison is quiet for a while. Bewildered into silence. "How did-"

"I found two grenades. That's all I had down there. That and, you know." She nods over her shoulder at her rifle. Madison remembers seeing ghouls with crushed skulls on the floor of the tunnels and hearing explosions that seemed out of place. Her stomach sinks with the memory and Jude's admittance. "Why didn't you say anything? Why are you telling me now? How are we even still alive."

The questions all came out at once. Jude answers them in one sentence. "I've always been lucky."

"Is that really how you see it?"

"How else can I see it?"

Saints are truly born saints, Madison realizes. How else could an orphan with the weight of their world on her shoulders think herself lucky.

Madison looks past Jude and into the bleak horizon she is walking into. She has at least three days of travel to irradiated Vault 87, or rather the cavern that may possibly lead to it. This was one of several times that Madison has watched her go and does not expect her to return. It was as exhausting now as it has been before. Her lack of faith has become a source of tiring and constant shame but Jude has never mentioned it and Madison knows she won't. It isn't in her nature.

"Luck won't last you forever."

"It has so far."

"A little bit of realism won't kill you, you know," Madison says. "Blind optimism will."

Jude shrugs and her mouth curves up a little. "That's what I've got you for."

Madison briefly wonders if Jude needs Madison's pragmatism as much as Madison needs Jude's hopefulness.

They are still on the staircase and the sun is rising without its warmth. Daylight hours are precious when the nights are so dark. It's time for Jude to leave. She stands a step below Madison, putting her at about eye level with the other woman. She doesn't say anything, just leans forward and kisses Madison fleetingly on the cheek. When she pulls away it takes all of Madison's willpower to not pull her back towards her.

"Please be careful."

Madison's voice is quiet and her face still warm when she says her next and last words. For now, she thinks. "Good luck, Jude."

The girl gives her a small smile, turns and walks down the stairs, across the lot, finally turning on the road into the murk. Madison watches until she becomes a small speck and watches the land she will travel through long after the lone wanderer disappears from sight entirely.

* * *

Thank you to everyone for reading. Normally I don't ever write anything that isn't a one shot but this longer story has been fun and challenging for me. Things are finally starting to pick up a bit and I'm eager to write the next part. Have a good day and thanks again.


	9. Chapter 9

The hum of machinery and the low murmur of voices are muted as Madison stares into a terminal, eyes both focused and somehow unseeing as she types line after line of code into the Liberty Prime's weapons system. Blue green text bright against the black background over and over. Another cold meal sits forgotten or ignored near her. She rubs her eyes with a shaky hand and types some more. Her labcoat is too big for her now, it sits gathering dust on the back of her chair. When one is underground it is difficult to know the time of day but this has been her reality for some time now. She's just waiting.

The Citadel has been sending scouts out to watch the Memorial and the Brotherhood is outnumbered 15 to 1 by on-site Enclave soldiers alone. Vertibirds bring more in every day. At this point, Liberty Prime is their only feasible combative option. Madison and Rothchild almost have the robot operational and most systems are online and they have solved the main power and calibration issues.

The mindless and tedious work she has put into that damn thing is a monotonous counterpoint to the fleeting but powerful hope she feels every time the door from the lab to the bailey opens.

Jude has been gone for two weeks. Optimism is painful and Madison is mostly convinced that she will not see her again. The thought of that girl becoming just another anonymous skeleton in the wastes is devastating though and a tiny part of her that Jude has taken over tells her to wait just a little longer. So she does, embedding herself in terminals and notes and tests and more tests and only looking up when she hears that door open. It's never Jude who walks through but it might be the next time.

She is brought out of her mind by the noise. The voices in the lab are louder now, no longer muted. She hears arguing.

"...can't risk the entire Brotherhood. The Enclave can't start the purifier without the GECK anyway."

Madison stands and walks toward the voices.

"It's only a matter of time before they find a different way to start it. That's what they're doing right now while we stand here waiting."

Sarah Lyons stands in the lowel level with her entire squad at her back, her father and Rothchild across from them. Elder Lyons is shaking his head vehemently. "We are entirely outnumbered. Attacking now would mean a massacre. You'd lose your entire squad."

"We're willing to risk it."

"I'm not. The answer is no, Sarah. We will find another way to take back the purifier. With or without a GECK."

Madison realizes that they assume Jude dead. Why else would Sarah want to attack now. Why would Lyons intend on "finding another way."

She hates them. She hates that they are the ones "taking back" the purifier when it was never theirs. She hates that they sent Jude on a chase after a myth and have already dismissed her as lost to the cause.

They are still arguing. A little louder now. Madison doesn't even hear the door open. She turns away from the debacle below her and goes to walk up the stairs and into the bailey, wanting to be anywhere but in here right now. The stairs are poorly lit and she doesn't see the figure on the steps above her until she runs into them. When she moves back and starts to mutter an apology her words die in her throat.

"Oh my God."

It's Jude.

"Madison?"

In the five seconds after Jude says her name Madison can't decide if she wants to throttle the woman or kiss her. She doesn't do either. She also can't decide if she should be joyous or furious. She decides on both.

"Do you have any idea how long you've been gone?"

Jude looks like she's walked straight through cold dead hell. Skin is sunken into her cheeks and eyes. Her tight-fitted armor is loose on her frame. She trembles like she can barely stands. Madison grabs her arms and holds her there.

"Where the hell have you been?"

She walks past Madison on the stairs and looks back over her shoulder, her questions ignored. "Come with me, I need to find Lyons."

Madison follows her automatically but reluctantly, loathe to spend another second away. They walk into the lab and the room falls silent.

"You're back." It's Elder Lyons who speaks first, not hiding his surprise at seeing the girl return. "Do you have the GECK?"

"No. The Enclave captured me in Vault 87 and took it. They've installed it but they don't have the access code."

"Then it's only a matter of time before they figure it out." It's Sarah who steps forward now, taking her chance. "We need to attack now before they can."

She looks to her father. "Send us in. We can do this."

Elder Lyons is quiet, solemn. He looks at his daughter, and finally exhales, his whole body deflating. "Fine Sarah, we'll do it your way. But not without some more firepower."

He turns to Rothchild. "Is it ready?" When Rothchild only regards his words with confusion Lyons pointedly jerks his head at the robot. "Liberty Prime. Is it ready?"

"What? No, I mean, the targeting systems haven't been calibrated, the defense matrix hasn't-"

Lyons cut him off. "Rothchild, enough. Can you make it work or not?"

Rothchild looked at the robot, face slack in bewilderment. "Honestly? I don't know. Li solved most of the power issues. I can probably make it work, and I guess if it isn't ready then it won't really matter anyway."

Elder Lyons nods and suddenly everything goes into motion, like the shot at the start of a race had finally been fired after uncountable seconds of stillness. Madison looks around her. Everyone is moving, accessing terminals, running last minute diagnostics. A deep siren overhead as the systems come online only adds to the chaos. Sarah is giving some kind of inspirational speech to her men and her loud voice penetrates the space around them. Only Madison and Jude remain motionless.

"I thought you were dead."

"Didn't I tell you I was going to see you soon?"

Madison doesn't even have a chance to reply. Sarah is approaching, a behemoth in her armor. She slaps Jude hard on the back and it's a wonder the girl doesn't break in two. "Glad to see you made it back in one piece. Ready for one more fight?"

"What?"

"Yes."

Madison and Jude speak at the same time and look at each other at the same time. Madison feels her stomach twist. "No. You just got back from God knows where. You're in no condition to storm the Memorial."

"You worry too much."

"Jude. Let them do this. Just once let someone else do this."

Jude shakes her head. "My father started this. I need to end it."

"And it killed him. And it'll kill you too."

Sarah was already heading up the stairs, footsteps heavy and loud. She stops at the top and calls down. "Are you coming or not?"

"Goddammit Jude don't do this."

Madison's voice breaks. Jude has already slung her rifle over her shoulder. Madison's vision goes blurry and she can't look Jude in the face.

"Madison."

"Please."

"I have to go."

Madison doesn't argue. There isn't a point. This girl is her father's child and nothing could ever change his mind and Madison knows nothing will change hers. When she finally looks up Jude is gone and the lab is empty and it takes every bit of her strength not to collapse.

* * *

Another kinda hard chapter for me to write. But that's okay, I already have the next part pretty much written out in my head. This is a slow story romance-wise and I thank you all for your patience. We're getting there.


	10. Chapter 10

The ground shakes with Liberty Prime's steps for a time before tapering off. Madison can still feel faint vibrations every few seconds. The low boom of exploding mortars increases in frequency and Madison briefly and desperately imagines Jude sniping across the bridge, or crouching behind debris as huge cruel shrapnel cuts the air around her. Or she's dead. It's the more realistic outcome. Madison wouldn't know. She's been left behind again.

She stares into nothing, just waits. Waits for some solemn figure to walk in head bowed and say that everyone was just wiped out. No survivors. Start over. Madison can't and won't do it again.

Statistically, they have very little chance of success. The robot is only capable of so much. Jude can't keep being lucky and Madison doesn't believe in miracles even in this superstitious wasteland.

A door opens. Everyone save Madison had walked outside to witness the robot's loud and violent trek across the city. She had been alone in the lab until now and this is what she had been waiting for. She braces.

"They made it! They reached the purifier!"

It's a young scribe who yells this over the railing of the walkway above. Madison just stares.

"Who? Who all made it?"

"I don't know for sure. I think Sentinel Lyons and Jude, they just made it inside."

"What do you mean you think?"

Her voice is sharp and the scribe is taken aback, his soft face confused. The door opens again, Rothchild comes jogging down the stairs. "Liberty Prime is clearing the remaining Enclave forces as we speak. The worst of the fighting is over. He worked perfectly."

"Who made it inside?"

"I don't know, we couldn't tell from here. Only two though."

Madison's jaw stiffens. "What about the purifier?"

"I'll need your help. You'll have to monitor startup remotely from here to make sure it all runs properly. Who knows what those Enclave hacks could have done to it."

She goes to her terminal and brings up data for the purifier. Initial figures are good, then she checks pressures and her skin goes cold.

"Oh, my god."

There's an intercom on the wall near here, she runs to it and frantically holds the call button."

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

No response.

"Hello?"

"Dr. Li?"

It's Sarah. Madison can't stop herself. "Did Jude make it in?"

No response again.

"Hello? Is she there?"

"I'm here Madison."

Thank God. The relief is almost overwhelming coupled with the fear and anxiety with which she speaks her next words. "The facility received heavy damage in the attack. The pressure is building up in the tanks, the purifier needs to be turned on now or else the reactor is going to explode."

There's no response again.

"Do you hear me? It needs to be turned on now!"

Sarah on the line again. "We hear you, Madison, we're arguing over who gets to turn it on."

"What's wrong with you two? It doesn't matter! Just do it!"

The intercom is quiet for about fifteen seconds and the silence is agonizing. "Hello?"

"Madison?" It's Jude's voice now, soft against the loudness of the noises around her. "We're reading high levels of radiation in the chamber. Whoever goes in only has a few moments." She's quiet again. "Which means this is goodbye."

"What?"

"Thank you for everything, Madison." Jude's voice is strained and her tone regretful but she does not sound afraid in spite of everything. She inhales once. "Take care of yourself." The intercom clicks and goes silent.

"Jude? Jude! Wait!"

Static on the other end. No response from anyone. Madison says Jude's name over and over until her voice is hoarse but she hears nothing more.

"God damn it. God damn you."

She paces, unable to stop moving. She grips her hair in her hands until her knuckles are white. She curses James for creating that child and she curses herself for falling for her. How stupid had she been. How stupid and desperate was she. How else could this have ended.

"It worked! The pumps are working!"

Rothchild and a couple of other scribes are at the purifier terminal, staring wide-eyed at the screen.

"Was it worth it?" is all she asks them and she does not get an answer but she doesn't need one. It wasn't, not for what they lost. Jude's death was a meaningless and wasteful sacrifice and Madison will never forgive herself for trying so hard to believe otherwise.

Jude had believed it to the very end, otherwise it would have been Sarah and not her who walked into that chamber.

Madison can't stand to be here anymore. She can't stand Rothchild's jubilant face and she can't stand the scribe's celebrations. She retreats from the lab, walking as fast as she can to the bailey. The sky is beautiful and vanilla today, a sick cosmic joke. The wind breaks and a vertibird hovers into view and touches down on the landing pad. A spoil of war for the Brotherhood. Elder Lyons stands near it as the hatch opens, surrounded by knights and she doesn't look at his face.

"You're sure she's alright?"

"Unconscious but alive. We'll get her to the med bay."

"And Jude?"

"Same condition, worse off though."

Madison freezes, entirely caught off guard.

"What?"

No one hears or notices her. She stands dead still, unwilling to move lest she break the illusion of what she is witnessing. Sarah is taken out of the vertibird in a stretcher, unable to be carried due to her armor. A final paladin exits the hatch then, holding a crumpled, frail figure in his arms.

The grey scarf is blown free from her neck by the wind and twists and writhes over the ground. Madison catches it and grips it tight in her hands.


	11. Chapter 11

The infirmary is quiet at this hour and only the night guards outside are awake. Madison insisted that the medic robot be removed so she sits alone save for two motionless bodies. She sits watching, waiting as always and it's during these silent hours that she realizes that she has been waiting for most of her life and after this she won't wait again. She's too old for it.

The right side of Jude's body and face is bruised black and ochre and indigo. Her right arm in a cast. Two fractured ribs but there is little that can be done about that. She is alive, but she has been in a coma for three days.

Sarah Lyons lies against the opposite wall. Her armor took most of the impact from her body but she hit the back of her head hard on metal wall and she too has not woken up, but Sara is not who Madison spends the night watching over. She talks to her and the experience is not so different than if Jude was awake.

"Jude. I hope this was worth it."

Madison does not think it is but she also acknowledges her selfishness. She knows Jude would have died for Project Purity and nothing Madison says will change that.

Three days pass. The Brotherhood scribes relocated to the Jefferson Memorial yesterday and investigated the purifier. They determined that after Jude activated on the purifier a small secondary tank exploded and sent her and Sarah and debris hurtling through the air and into the back wall of the chamber, which is where the Brotherhood found them after they cleared the last of the Enclave.

Bottles of pure water were being distributed as of this moment, with caravans bringing gifts from the Jefferson Memorial to every corner of the wastes. The Brotherhood had fully taken control of all Project Purity activities and maintenance but Madison doesn't care anymore.

Elder Lyons joins her occasionally, to spend time with his daughter and to keep her updated on matters that no longer concern her.

"You should go visit the facility Madison. See what all has been accomplished because of you and your team. Your sacrifices were not in vain."

Madison wishes Jude were awake for this conversation, she'd benefit far more than Madison is. She nods at the sleeping form. "She's the one that did everything."

"Yes, she's a remarkable girl. A talented killer too." He views Jude as more of a weapon than a human and Madison can't ignore the irony so she says nothing in response. Lyons is quiet for some time.

"You know she let Colonel Autumn go after all that?"

Madison isn't surprised.

"Of course, we killed him ourselves when he tried to escape the facility. Can't let a man like that go free." Lyons shrugs. "Our capacity for forgiveness isn't so high I'm afraid."

"No one's is."

Another four days. The swelling is gone. Save for a few restless hours of sleep and one daily meal Madison has barely moved from her post during the week that Jude has been asleep in here. She owes the girl this, a presence in the room. Someone to worry for her. She doesn't want to be away if and when Jude wakes up.

"I'm going back to Rivet City, after all this. Back to my lab."

Jude would approve. Madison's own research with growing clean food will benefit from the influx and accessibility of pure water. She can make life better for these people in her own way.

"Maybe once you're awake you can recover there. We have better medical equipment. Actual doctors."

Madison looks at her hands, runs her fingers over her knuckles. Picks nervously at her nails. She's always been an anxious person. High-strung. Jude somehow inflames and negates that tendency.

"I almost left when I thought you were gone. I wanted to give all this up. I couldn't start over here again. I hate this place."

She meant the capital wasteland. Everything here had become a symbol for what had gone wrong with humanity and no matter how hard she tried it was difficult to justify saving it. Jude's survival was the only reason she stayed.

It's easy to be entirely honest when Jude can't hear her.

"I'm not sure where I would be without you."

One week passes. The nights are long and the days shrouded. It is impossible to accurately mark the passing of time. Yesterday Madison walked outside of the Citadel and the sky was so grey with ash that she could stare right at the cold white sun without it burning her eyes.

The possibility that Jude will not wake up has become more evident and it's all Madison thinks about. They keep telling her that both Sarah and Jude will wake up soon but optimism hurts and Madison is tired of getting her hopes up. She can't leave her like this, dark to the world and trapped within herself for the rest of her life in the care of people who will forget about her. Jude is much more useful to the Brotherhood as a martyr and Madison knows this.

She wonders about Jude's perception of luck. Was the girl lucky that her father had died to save her? That the Brotherhood had taken advantage of both her talent and total selflessness in the name of good versus evil? Was being comatose instead of dead a sign of good fortune?

She would ask Jude but Jude can't answer. And Madison knows what she would say anyway.

Two weeks after the activation of the purifier Jude slips into consciousness as if she had been sleeping only for a couple of hours. She wakes up at the one moment of the day that Madison is not at her side, but instead she finds Madison's lab coat draped over her legs like a blanket and an empty chair with her grey scarf hung over the back and she knows Madison is not far away.


	12. Chapter 12

Madison opens the door to the infirmary and stops still with her hand on the knob when she sees Jude sitting up in her cot, long thin legs dangling over the edge, Madison's labcoat still covering her thighs. Jude looks over at her and smiles in the dim blue light.

"Hi, Madison."

"You're awake." Madison's voice is breathless, unbelieving. Jude just regards her with curiosity and perhaps relief. "How long have you been up?"

"A few minutes."

Madison is almost beside herself. After two weeks of vigilance she leaves for ten minutes and the girl has to wake up then. Once again she wonders if her own bad luck outweighs Jude's good. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?"

"Not being here."

"How long was I out?"

"Two weeks."

"Oh." Jude's expression is difficult to read. She looks away from Madison and to Sarah's prone form. She watches her for some time. "What about her?"

"She hasn't woken up yet."

"Oh."

Now that Jude is awake Madison is not sure what to say or do. Talking was easier when the girl was asleep. Admitting those things she had said had been easier. She stands there and the only sound is the faint beeping of machinery and the hum of the walls. Jude looks back at her, eyes flicking over her face but she says nothing. Her stare makes Madison shift uncomfortably in place and after a few moments of this Madison breaks the silence herself. "What?"

"You look terrible."

She can't help it, but Madison laughs a little. It's a small almost choked sound and the feeling is foreign and strange. She crosses her arms over herself to cover the new thinness of her ribs, the product of days spent bedside without meals but her small smile remains. "You should see what you look like."

Jude's lips quirked slightly. The dark hollows of her eyes stand out sharply in the shadowed lighting. Her next words are quiet. "Did it work?"

Madison knows what she is asking and nods. There is a crate in the corner of the room and Madison goes to it and takes out a bottle of perfectly clear water. She hands it to Jude and the girl holds the Aqua Pura in her lap. "It did. You did it."

Jude looks down at the bottle but from here Madison can see the small upward curve at her lips. Madison walks over to her chair and takes the scarf from the seat. She holds it out for Jude but the girl sets the bottle down and lightly takes her hand instead and Madison is pulled close to stand between Jude's legs.

"We did it, Madison."

Madison huffs a little, the nerves in her body rippled from her fingers to her chest when Jude touched her and she looks at their hands nervously. "No, Jude. This was all you."

She looked up then. Jude is close, close enough that she can see every inch of marked skin and the flecks of grey and silver in her eyes. Madison feels heat around her face and neck. "Your father would be proud."

Jude shakes her head and her gaze shifts to a point in space past both of them. "I didn't do this for him."

"Then for what?"

Her head shakes again. She opens her mouth but nothing comes out yet. From here Madison can see her mind working to formulate the right words and she wishes she would look her in the face. "For what, Jude?"

"There are few redeemable people out here, Madison. I try so hard to believe that everyone and everything can be saved and is worth saving. It isn't easy. It never is."

Jude finally looks up, and in eyes that Madison once thought dead she sees so much compassion and conflict that she almost has to look away but she doesn't.

"But you always tried so hard too, Madison. Even when you believed that what you were doing was useless and hopeless you still did everything you could to make it work. When I was afraid and doubtful and when I questioned my purpose out there I thought of you and I thought of all the things you do to make this world better and I knew that if I did this for anyone it had to be for you."

Jude's hands are shaking. Or maybe Madison's are. She can't tell. She can hear her heart in her ears.

"I don't know where I would be without you."

Madison's own words were given back to her and Jude was so close. Her hand reached up to lightly touch faded black hair and she leaned closer. Their lips pressed together carefully, the both of them unmoving for long moments before Jude moved her mouth slightly against Madison's.

The feeling within her chest was powerful, almost suffocating. The scarf dropped forgotten onto the ground between them. Jude twisted her fingers into Madison's swept back hair and she could not help the sound she made against Jude's lips. It was too much. Jude was too much. All the worry and fear and doubt she had felt since meeting her had culminated in this moment and it was Madison who pulled away, her face flushed and her eyes averted. "I don't..."

Jude dropped her hands into her laps, flinching away slightly. "I'm sorry."

Madison shook her head, her own thoughts coming too fast to process. The space between them grows. "No, it's just..."

Madison is torn between retreating from the room and never returning and kissing Jude again. She's made her decision when the door to the infirmary opens.


	13. Chapter 13

Madison almost falls to the opposite wall of the infirmary when she hears the click of the door knob turning and the creak of it swinging open.

It's Elder Lyons. Madison wasn't sure if she had ever loathed this man more than in this moment. His face contorts in surprise when he sees Jude and he sputters out something about knowing she was going to pull through even though his voice and expression tell otherwise and Madison can't stand it. She mutters about getting some water and pushes past Lyons and the glimpse of Jude's face she catches as she walks out the door makes her lungs seize.

She rushes through the Citadel, never feeling more trapped in these walls than she does now. She walks up the stairs and pushes through the door into the bailey. She sits on a bench surrounded by crates and barrels of Aqua Pura and stares at nothing.

Stupid. Stupid. Why does she do this to herself. Why now. Why her.

She doesn't know how long she sits. A crow caws and hops around her feet not even noticing her she sits so still. The cold sun ascends and begins to descend. The door inside opens. She doesn't look at who sits next to her. She doesn't have to. The crow flies over the walls to the north and they both watch it go but they say nothing.

"Why did you leave?"

It's Jude who talks. Her voice is low, sad, questioning. Madison still won't look at her. "I don't know."

"Yes you do."

"I'm old. I'm bitter and I'm old and I'm hateful and you're none of those things."

"What is the real reason?"

"You terrify me."

"I scare you?"

Madison shakes her head. She shifts her eyes upward and finally looks at Jude's beautiful distraught face and shakes her head some more. "No, the things you do. The way you are. I don't understand you. I never will. And that would be fine if I didn't spend every second fearing for your life because of it."

Jude considers her words but says nothing. Madison puts her head in her hands and asks a question that she knows she shouldn't. "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"You know what I'm asking."

Jude blushes and the sight is almost enough to make Madison sink into nothing. "Why me?"

Jude shrugs. "Why not you?"

"Your vagueness might be enough for anyone else but it doesn't work on me."

"Maybe that's why."

"What do you mean?"

"You said you don't understand me. I think you do. Better than anyone. But either way you're the only one that tries." Jude pauses, swallows nervously. "And I think other than my dad I'm the only one that tries to understand you."

"I know what's it's like to lose the life you created for yourself. If my dad hadn't left the vault I would be practicing medicine alongside him right now. I would take his place as he grew old and I would care for him until he passed away. Nothing really goes according to plan. But if he hadn't left I wouldn't have ever known that there is so much more to the world than dim metal tunnels and blue vault suits."

Madison wants to say that the world outside of metal tunnels and vault suits is rife with violence and suffering and hatred but she looks at the fabric wrapped in Jude's arms instead. The bundle she holds close isn't the iconic grey scarf, Madison realizes. It's her lab coat.

"I wouldn't have known you either."

They sit in silence for some time. Madison isn't sure who reaches out first but their hands find each other and rest in the space between them. She knows that this won't last. The wasteland just wouldn't allow it. Jude's call to save the world won't ever stop and the things she does won't ever be enough. Madison knows this and she wonders if deep down Jude knows this too, but she would never say so even if she did.

Maybe Madison understands her better than she thinks. Maybe she's fooling herself but she supposes it doesn't matter. The ash above cleared, driven away by persistent winds. The sun is white behind the haze but she can look at Jude's face and she sees gold. The girl will die young, likely long before Madison does but she has this moment and she will take it.

She thinks of her life in her lonely green lab and weeks spent without ever going outside and silent nights with only her thoughts and wonders how she ever did it. All her past lives and past loves and past failures and successes had culminated in this moment and for once in her life Madison feels lucky too.

* * *

Thank you everyone for reading and reviewing. This was interesting to write and I hope you enjoyed it.


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